Sleipnir: A SHIELD Codex Short
by KhamanV
Summary: A necessary visit to Asgard brings with it not only the rediscovery of lost fragments of Loki's past, but a reminder that curiosity has costs that he might not have wanted to pay. (Codex 7)


(_This short takes place not long after An Agent of Chaos and is due directly to events from An Honest Man._)

Sleipnir: A SHIELD Codex Short

. . .

Long ago:

_"He's crying. Look at him go. Gods." _

_"Settle off, Buri. He's younger than us. We didn't mean to do that, Loki. We're sorry about your books."_

_"Bor, shut up."_

_"No, YOU shut up. You didn't have to slam me into the wall!" _

_"We were just playing. He doesn't have to get whiny about it. Oh good, his mommy's coming. Hurray for the Queen."_

_"I can't find it! I can't! Where is it?"_

_"What's so important about that stupid thing anyway? I've got better toys."_

_"No... no... it's not here."_

_"We're sorry, okay? It was just a dumb little horse."_

_"It's lost... Mother!"_

. . .

_Now:_

Loki leaned back against the fine chair of golden wood and silvery steel, watching the stocky Corpsman pace back and forth across the wide expanse of his private Asgardian quarters. There was a durable, thick datapad clasped in the Xandarian man's stubby hands, and the eyes were squinting studious under the mop of curly reddish hair. It was clear that the Nova Corp officer was set on waiting for the device's scans to tell him the obvious. "You know well who I am, officer. You don't need a machine to speak for you. It's not as if they let just _anyone _into a prince's chambers around here." He kept his voice light, and why not? The man was a harmless bumbler, set to a drudgery task. He could have easily drawn someone far more stolid and unpleasant.

"Yeah, I know. It's just procedure." Corpsman Rhomann Dey looked up from the pad at him, eyes furrowed together apologetically under remarkably bushy brows. "Habit, too, really. Thanks for comin' to Asgard for this, by the way. You know how it is. Not supposed to be messing around with Earth and all that for just a routine check." The corpsman looked down at the pad, his next words muttered uncomfortably to himself. "Not really supposed to be messing with Asgard, either."

Loki waved the minor inconvenience off, not letting on he'd heard the rest. Then he dropped both his elbows to the surface of the hardwood desk with a soft thump, the gesture muffled by the still-Earthly black cotton jacket he'd chosen to come to Asgard in. He smiled evenly, clasping his hands together as the pudgy Xandarian corpsman fretted with his device. The man's thumbs fidgeted as Loki slouched further in his seat. He kept his tone conversational even as he scanned some of the other pads and documents that the officer left astray on the desk in front of him. "So. Are such things your typical assignation?"

"How do you mean, sir?" Dey cleared his throat, visibly uncomfortable as he shifted his weight from one foot to another. He didn't look up.

He flicked a hand at Dey, still looking down at the other datastreams. Something there was catching his eye and he read as quickly as he could, despite the information being upside down and moving fast. "Morality checks on the galaxy's malcontents. Acting as our parole officer, so to speak. Ensuring our noses are clean and our fingernails trimmed." Yes, there _was _something in the stream he recognized – some sort of general law enforcement alert regarding an assault and a felony theft. There were operational codes attached to it that he didn't know. A smile touched the corner of his lips at the quick flashes of blurry security images. Just enough there for him to identify. "The tree and the little one. These others are also on your check-up list?"

Dey jumped as if goosed and swore, dropping the pad he was using on top of the other one to cover it up. "That's Corp information, you're not supposed to be reading it." He winced. "Do me a favor and don't tell the Prime I left that where you could see."

Loki shrugged and leaned back, still sedate. "It's nothing to me. What did that pair do this time?"

"Uh." The corpsman picked up the pair of datapads and moved back to start shuffling awkwardly around the room in a half-hearted visual search. "Nothing major. We're just watching them. You know. They're listed on your file as known associates, so." He cleared his throat, unable to stop talking. "Their boss ripped off someone's warship for giggles. It's okay. It'll be fine. It's being handled."

"_Their_ boss?" He considered the images he saw, the blur of reddish leather alongside the rest. "You don't refer to that Quill?" Loki couldn't resist a grin, delighted at the change in what he knew. "And here the little one told me _he_ was in charge." He looked up at the tall ceiling of his quarters, squinting thoughtfully against the brilliant magelights he kept floating high in morphing constellations. "This makes a great deal more sense."

"I know, right? Rocket can't command a rat out of a paper bag." Dey grinned back on reflex, then tried to straighten his face back into the proper stony gaze of law enforcement. "Uh. Forget I said that."

The delight stretched further across Loki's face as he put it together. "_They're _your primary case file. You draw this routine duty from some thin strand of bureaucratic connection between us, some chain of dull organization. Dear Gods. Me! A footnote in someone else's exciting drama."

"You're a hell of a footnote," Dey muttered. "Anyway, you're listed as low trouble, which is _weird _considering your criminal designation, so. I mean, though... it's not like we're just going light on you or whatever." He resumed scanning the vast bookshelves around him, his voice trailing off.

"Yes, I noted your Nova Prime arrived with you." He waved the detail off, as if it didn't interest him. It did, very much so, but there was no value in letting the corpsman realize that. "You're not going to find any contraband in _Asgard _of all places. Please do not disrupt my things, thank you."

"Look, I'm just doing a routine check." The words came out in an awkward chunk.

"I haven't even been here in a handful of months. I _may _have left a fork in my quarters on Earth, however. Also, they let me have a gun on occasion." He watched Dey tweak nervously at that. "I didn't bring it _with me_."

His levity still drew the Corpsman's study, the man's eyes on him as he backed towards the bookcase in the far corner. Loki's instincts realized what was going to happen next and he rose from his seat already annoyed as the man's boot-heel connected with the old chest set in front of the case.

Dey uttered a sharp curse as he stumbled back, a hand flailing out to rescue his balance. He grabbed one of the shelves on that reflex and Loki had to bolt the several steps across the room to make sure the idiot didn't pull out the entire case. Books scattered across the floor, followed by the cop as he tried to rescue a few. "Ah, crap. I'm really sorry. I didn't see the damn thing. Did I wreck it?"

Loki didn't bother to say anything, choosing to bury his ire by making sure none of the damage was irreparable. Just a few slightly dented spines on books that were hard-worn already. He tossed things into a pile, then glanced at the box the Corpsman stumbled into. A child's chest of treasures. A corner of the room he seldom bothered with any longer, the shelves an archive of a long-lost era. He shook his head. "You meant no harm," he muttered, annoyed but knowing it was the likely truth. He looked at the man's shifting back. "Come away, I'll organize later."

"A couple things dropped down behind the case, I think I can-"

"Finish the damned job of pulling the case onto yourself!" He couldn't stop the frustrated snap that time. Something clattered behind the case as the man wiggled. "Get back and let me fix it." _Gods, if this is some method of ensuring a search of my things through sheer bumbling foolishness..._

Dey scuttled back, face crestfallen. "Man. This is why I don't get a lot of field jobs."

"Really. And here I took you for a hardened officer." Loki deadpanned. He put a hand on the case, ensuring that it was solidly on balance. Then he put his shoulder against the corner wall where the case was mostly butted into and took a peek.

Yes, a few books had dropped behind. Delightful. He hunkered down and snaked his slender arm into the narrow gap. His brow furrowed as he heard something that was _not _a book clatter against the softer sounds of the paper. A few careful tugs and he managed to drop his palm onto whatever it was, feeling out the shape of it against his fingers.

Corpsman Dey watched the prince's face change, becoming first startled, then smoothing over into something unreadable. The pale hand pulled something free – he couldn't quite see what. Some small toy. Then the hand closed around it, as his eyes shut for a moment. "Look, again, I'm really sorry."

"It's fine," came the oddly soft reply. The hand went to his pocket, secreting away whatever it was he'd found.

It seemed harmless. Dey fidgeted, feeling the change in the air. "You know what? I want to start over. That was stupid of me and I should just go get a drink of water and come back in just a bit. And then I'll sit in a chair and we'll do this little paperwork thing and call it good. I gotta ask you to stay here till we're done, but I won't be long. Okay?"

"Perfectly acceptable." The prince was still muted, but the eyes flickered up sharply at the opportunity.

. . .

Still apologizing for his fumble, the Corpsman didn't have a chance at noticing what Loki did with the free time given to him. As Dey excused himself for the promised start-over, Loki placed an image of himself at ease in the chair he'd only just vacated, then spent a little energy for just enough invisibility to get out the door and well down the hall towards the great throne room. Just a game to buy him time for an old hobby. He had no intention of tricking the Corpsman all day.

Once well out of sight and with nothing to worry about but patrolling guards who knew he was in residence and had no reason to care, he stepped quietly the rest of the way. He slid down a disused hall that ran parallel to the current heart of the palace, a dusty corridor that held a secret he'd used more than once over long years – a thin crack all but invisible from the other side, where the ornate carvings and tall columns of the greater throne room made even the cagiest of eyes slide over the flaw. Were Odin holding court in the smaller golden hall, he'd have to find some other way to feed his curiosity.

There were three figures in the throne room, although only two were physically present. One was Odin upon his throne, listed comfortably to one side as he gazed down on his guests. Before him was the Nova Prime, and she controlled the holographic image of a third party. A common method of securing a controversial private meeting, though via the Prime? That interested Loki. Of the hologram itself, he saw little. A tall, regal shape draped in grey furs. He could see no face from his vantage.

He wrinkled his nose as he considered that, coming to the logical conclusion. His fingertips went cold where they touched the wall. Not aware he was doing it, Loki put his other hand on his pocket to feel the shape of the small carving inside.

"And I tell you, All-Father, you can ill-afford any additional threats. Not while the galaxy is in such flux." The unknown figure was talking, her voice low and gruff. Yes. Some woman of Jotunheim. He pushed back from his spyhole, still unable to avoid the discomfort he felt just looking at a Frost Giant.

"So you both come to sell me peace after all, despite the Nova Prime's protestations that she be a _neutral party_ to this meet." Great old Odin sounded amused, tutting a little laugh into his beard.

The platinum head narrowed icy eyes at the king. "I'm a pragmatist. I'm maintaining that my presence here as a mediator is neutral-"

"Arranged by this good woman of Jotunheim and brought before me in the greatest of quiet."

Loki arched an eyebrow as Odin's lazy attack found no target in the Prime. Her face remained calm steel as she continued as if he'd said nothing. "But one thing seems clear. Collectively, we cannot afford further fragmentation. _Something _is coming." She paused to ensure she had the king's one good eye. "I've been continuing our investigations on the matter of certain allegations put forward by Asgard."

Odin shifted on his throne. His voice held a correction, but not disbelief. "By Loki of Asgard. They have borne out, Prime?"

"Well. We've had Thanos on our monitors before. What your prince alleges – military build-up, back room acquisitions, certain terroristic operations on some of the outer planets – it's disturbing but in line with things we've heard. Yes. What we examine now is the _scale _of this threat."

"And you have your own agents on this, of course." The king's voice was mild.

The Prime shrugged, cooly pragmatic. "I've put a lot of people out there, tracking the warlord, tracing whatever he's seeking and upping security on our end. A few of our resources are particularly suited to the job, whether they know what purpose they're actually serving or not."

The undertone of her words gave Loki something to focus on besides the image of the Frost Giant. _Rocket and his companions. Ah. So that's the true reasoning behind that Dey's work. The galaxy spins its plans amidst plans without need for me to nudge it. Well and good._

"A poor time for bad blood," murmured the hologram, bringing another chill to the hidden listener.

"And here you are to proselytize to _me _that we ought settle debts whilst we can." Odin's one good eye filtered back to the hologram. "An alliance made in haste can bring ruin just as easily as war's toil."

"I said no word of alliance. Only a kind of peace. I'll reign in the Jotun – all I need from _you, _good All-Father... is to stay properly out of my way. If the blood-hungriest of my lot find no meat to sup upon from your lairs, then they'll eventually turn to me."

"And you mean to do this. You commit."

"I mean to."

The king shook his greyed mane, not unkindly. "Your people will no longer follow a woman and her wiles, those years are long done in Jotunheim. The shamans hold no sway. You can thank Laufey for that."

"And _you_ can thank your lost queen for why I deign to even speak, when _your_ methods forged our fool king's foolish resolutions," retorted the Jotun. "She was the better of you, and 'tween us we brokered what calm we could behind the storm of your idiot wars."

"She had her reasons," snapped Odin, visibly nettled by the invocation of the lost. Loki watched him, seeing still the pain left behind. That much he understood in the distant king. He knew the outline of that hollow space well himself.

The digitized voice softened. "My condolences on that loss. Do not think to spare me any in return for my dead mate, I have no need for them. He threw away everything I gave him. You yet have yours." There was an edge of bitter grief in the voice. Loki's hand curled around the carving in his pocket until he felt a sharper point on the figure begin to cut under one of his nails. He gave a soft hiss, forcing himself to let go.

He knew what he did not want to know.

His guts began to churn into acid and ice, that aged wine of hidden shame.

Odin sagged back against the throne, unaware of the turmoil beyond the wall. "You speak one truth. Frigga was the better of my house."

The Prime shifted as the hologram spoke again after the silence that statement deserved. "She would tell you to listen to me, not merely sit there with your aging condescension and assume that because the past between us is what it is, that the future cannot be changed."

"Yes. I suppose she would. Wisdom teaches we must recognize choice. A difficult lesson. One easily forgotten and oft then cruelly taught anew." A broad hand lifted. "I will consider the _lessons _and the choice you bring me, Lady Farbauti. If not for the sake of my people, then for the sake of what comes. I must do that much. I must _listen._"

"Listen all you like, this day and the coming days." The hologram snorted amiably enough. "Black birds are not rare to Jotunheim's sky, old king. Listen all you damn well please."

"And should I find a secret when listening at keyholes?" There was grouchy merriment in Odin's voice and Loki felt his face grow tight, realizing that this was a game he'd long since lost. The jape was not meant for the woman, but for his ears instead.

"Do with it as you like." The figure inclined her head politely. "The roads your wife and I forged are dusty but not lost. Through her diplomacy and mercy, we survived the worst of you. What could be kept safe was, despite the greatest efforts of others in both our houses."

"Another king might have called that private mission treason."

"But you knew it better as another game of politics; let the men play at their war. The queens will gamble instead for keeps, and for futures softer made. For that _mercy, _should the dark day come you lot need a help we were never given..." Loki could hear the tight smile on her face. "I remember my debts despite your efforts. For _her, _who valued kindness_._"

Only Loki heard the old king's thoughtful whisper as the Prime busied herself with sealing the communication, the voice a soft echo otherwise lost in the vastness of the hall. _"She had her reasons."_

Beyond the wall, Loki lost himself in a tumble of barely connected thoughts, feeling the tiny bead of blood under his nail.

. . .

_Frigga watched the two older boys scatter down the hall away from her, her own son still half-buried in her skirts to hide his upset. She held no anger towards the other children; they were as they must be, and they were more Thor's friends than still-smaller Loki. If anything, she felt a measure of blame, in insisting that her child take a chance and try to make friends of his own with those two._

_And now it came to ruin once again, her changeling-dark son coughing hot, frantic tears into her dress over a matter she understood only vaguely. Such were the hazy terrains of the wars among children, their mysteries not for an adult's mind. Still, she could guess – the loss of the tiny horse, a gift from her king's hand. Such things had a way of becoming far more valuable in the kingdom of a youthful mind. She smoothed a hand over his fine dark hair, making soft shushing noises to comfort him. "Loki. Loki, settle down. It'll turn up."_

_"No it won't! It's gone!"_

_"Nothing is gone forever," she whispered down against his head, knowing that for an old truism. "No door is forever sealed. You mustn't give up hope so easily, little dear. All travelers some day come to the home that's waited for them, whether they be made of wood or no."_

_The tears slowed, but the voice was cautious and still hurt. "Is that true or is it just another of our stories?"_

_"Sometimes, Loki, just sometimes, a story can become a kind of truth. That's their secret power, one that only a storyteller knows."_

_His arms tightened around her._

_. . ._

"Again you stand at the keyhole, Loki. You did not ever tire of listening at those, no, not even when you were small." Odin shifted on the great throne, moments after his visitors left the hall. "Come out with you, don't play at shadows." He harrumphed. "We both know well the costs incurred when you feel the need to skulk."

It took a moment for the fallen prince to idle his way back through the nearby hall, to the connection that led him into the room proper. Slow, but not so slow as to be insolent. Odin watched his shadow approach, the arrival heralded by the soft squawk of a raven dozing high in the rafters.

The sharp features and the tangle of long, black hair inclined with careful politeness under Odin's wry gaze. His one eye, still eagle-sharp, noted well the out-of-place Midgardian clothing the prince chose to wear on his necessary visit with those turnkeys and officers of the Nova Corps. There was a message in that choice, and he read it plain. _I am to lose both my sons to that young world, it seems, _he thought to himself ruefully.

"I should have long been aware all my secrets here were well known."

"All?" The king scoffed. "I have no doubt there's a few left to you, yet. You'll do me a kindness and not employ them when you visit. I weary of watching close for knives." He shrugged to let the prince know this was only banter. "So, then, young storyteller and listener of tales. Have you some wisdom as to what road I ought choose here?"

The black eyebrows lifted, the expression folding into something sardonic. "You think to ask me? How quite unwise, All-Father."

"A whimsy, Loki."

The prince studied the king, and what he thought of that whimsy was left well to himself. The question that came instead was careful, modulated in an emotionless voice. "Who was the woman's mate?"

"You know plain the answer to that now." Nothing changed in Loki's face, not that Odin was permitted to see. And for a moment, a long-forgotten whisper of trouble in the future ahead bubbled up from the old memories. If he but learned to listen the way a Queen had. "Should I have told her?"

The response was quick, belying the frost in it. "Told her what?" The prince took a step back from him, the old gulf still there even if the coldest wind did not blow across it any longer. "_Her_ child died on a frozen rock. Abandoned. Suffering. So goes the tale, long told enough that it shaped our reality."

Odin watched him, mute.

"The truth would not be kinder. Let the story stand." The young man's slender hands were at his pockets and Odin did not know why. He saw only that for a fleeting second, something else was on his once-lost son's face. "There is value to any tale after all, and not just the lessons carried within them." The words were quiet.

The face lifted to his, and to Odin's private surprise Loki spoke once more. "Take the peace offered you. That would be _my_ suggestion. This is not the time for Asgard's private wars, that much I can and have told you. The Prime's words, while few, were the important ones. Watch the Frost Giants, to be certain. If they keep to the treaty, at the least you gain a clear eye on their actions and that will always be useful. And you might be the All-Father that heralded the end of one of our longest wars. Not the most exciting of legends compared to all else writ, but perhaps a memorable enough footnote for the books."

"Reasonable and wise advice." The green gaze narrowed at his response, and in it Odin saw the old mistrusts, the lingering suspicion that the prince was being humored. It was not for him to comfort the younger man, he believed; Loki would ever make his own assumptions. "I shall contemplate upon the matter further. And now, are you not avoiding pressing business of your own?"

Loki gave the king a thin shadow of a smile at the dismissal as he bowed slightly, backing away to leave the throne room without another word.

_. . ._

_"Don't you ever tire of listening to tales, little Loki?" Odin glanced down at the sleek dark head of the small boy where his head rested atop folded arms to watch him carve. There was no rancor in the king's voice, only bemusement with the son he could not seem to ever fully comprehend. "Does not the outside air call you to go play? You like the night well, and this one shines bright."_

_"I like the stories," came the sleepy voice. "Anything can happen in them. Anything at all."_

_Odin's thick thumb brushed a curl of shaved wood away from the piece he was working on, the flesh of this particular species of stonetree naturally so dark to be almost black. He harrumphed a little sigh. "They have that freedom, for not all stories are true when their telling is done. They are bound to their own reality, which is seldom the one we are in. They have a lure, my son, but you should not heed them overmuch. Lest you miss what stands clear before your eyes."_

_"It's much the same as Mother's illusions."_

_"Yes, and those, I'm quite sure she has told you, can be their own danger. Fantasy holds an alluring risk."_

_"But there's lessons in all stories, real lessons. Those have value, don't they?" The boy was forever willful on the topic, his mother's acolyte._

_Another flick of his thumb across the carving, small enough to all but disappear in the breadth of his palm. In the distance, the halls still rumbled with the noise of visiting diplomats and the clatter of the mead gifted to them by their royal host. A quiet space in a busy time. The lone eye flickered down to his strange son, and he reflected that in this moment, the idle philosophies of a tranquil child were preferable to his other son's boisterousness. A smile passed across his face, lost in the beard. The boy could not see. One sharp green eye of his own watched the carving shift around in his father's fingers instead. "Yes. Lessons are the only thing you can carry from an old tale, and keep for your own," he allowed._

_That sat between them for a while as the little block of wood began to find the shape hidden inside it. The work was no longer as tricky as it once was in the days after he'd lost his eye. The deftness of his hands and the shifting of his face to check angles anew compensated for much. Still, it was a reminder of things lost and things gained. There was warmth yet in watching the child so fascinated with a hobby that once pleased himself far more. With a quick series of slices, he marked out where the many legs of the tiny horse would be – the image of his own great stallion, caught in a fleeting gallop._

_The next question came after peaceful silence. "Do you think I will ride Sleipnir someday, Father?"_

_He let his lone eye drift from the carving to the still-soft curve of Loki's face. "He is willful and so I cannot answer that. He is the greatest of horses, Loki. He has taken me to the gates of Death itself and back."_

_"So the legends say."_

_"Listen to your doubts! _Now_ the boy doubts the worth of a tale." An honest laugh rumbled in his chest. "So they say, and so do I. A harsh and long journey that was, and a tale not for tonight." At the corner of his vision, the boy shifted. "Are you not afraid of death, little Loki?"_

_The conviction in the answer surprised him. "I'm not."_

_"No?"_

_"I've dreamed of it before." The green eyes flickered up to him, the thin child's voice becoming a whisper. "It's... cold. Colder than anything. And dark, and I am very small in that darkness, and very lost."_

_He lifted an eyebrow in silent response, realizing a secret in that dream that the boy couldn't possibly know. Another nick, and the tiny horsetail lifted in defiance of the wood that caged it. A few flicks of his hand and the mane followed along, wild and curling just a little at the tips. Yes, his hands were still strong and quick._

_The eyes disappeared again. "Perhaps a little frightened. Because it's so cold."_

_"Only a little."_

_"But I wake up and it's warm again. That's how I know I'm alive. So there's nothing to be afraid of, not really. The chill is far away and all the monsters stay there. No monsters in Asgard."_

_Odin sighed, unsettled and unwilling to show it. "You are your mother's child far more than mine, Loki, with your dreams and your head full of fables. You must learn to be stronger than that, however, or your road forward will become very hard for you here. You are a prince, and that is the eventual price for this soft childhood we can gift you. Comfort, for when the pressure of the title and the word grows weighty indeed."_

_"I can be stronger. In my own manner." The boy sat up, his face questioning. "There's more than one road for everything, isn't there, Father?"_

_He could not deny there was a truth there. Details flowed into frozen life under his hands. "Not all roads are so easily chosen, however. They have costs."_

_"I'll find a way. In stories, there's always another way." There it was, the return of that childish conviction._

_"Perhaps you might. Well, until the day mighty Sleipnir might abide thee at his reins, here's his shadow to ride with instead." There were a few flaws that he with all his practice yet noted, but none were critical. He could be proud of the finer details, and the strength that seemed to flow through the carving's eight legs. He placed the tiny figure in front of the boy, whose face lit up with earnest delight. Loki cupped it gently in his small hands, turning it around to study it._

_In his eye, he saw the mistakes. But the boy saw only a precious thing, a gift from a father that was often distant and veiled by those duties that made him King and All-Father. In the light in the green eyes, Odin saw a reflection of the thoughts that troubled him sometimes – that his inability to quite grasp his strange, alien child might lead to future gulfs between them._

_But for now, they were only father and son, with a moment's warmth lit well between them._

_. . ._

The farriers and groomsmen took no notice of him when he entered the stables near the base of the great golden castle, busy amidst the bustle of their own daily tasks. One too young to know his face by sight alone looked up briefly when he passed further down the stalls towards the greater spaces meant for the most royal of the steeds, and his assistant slapped him hard on the arm to bid him back to his own business. Loki ignored them both, knowing that during this peace of his own he had every right to be here. Little else, to be sure. The finale of his business with Corpsman Dey was something of a reminder of that. But he could go where he wished, and that meant down at the very end of the vast and richly appointed barn, where the greatest beast of them all held an animal's court in a stall fit for an equine king, and his own paddock to enjoy at his will.

Sleipnir did not bother to look up from his feed when Loki leaned against the silver gate that separated them. The mythic horse knew he was there, plain by the flaring of the great nostrils and the fretting scrape of several of his many hooves against clean stone and soft straw.

"You should hear the things they say about you on Midgard," Loki said to the horse after studying him for a while, finding some morbid amusement in the sordid legend of the horse's ancestry now that he could not be overheard. "Might be near as offended as I found myself to be. What horror it would be for that story to be true, that your legacy be tainted by _mine_."

The eight-legged horse gave him a disaffected whicker before moving his great black muzzle over for another munch of fresh-smelling hay and oats. One enormous dark eye rolled over to examine him balefully before the long lashes fluttered in a blink.

Loki glanced to the side, the nostalgic, minty smell of the basket full of treats reaching him on the breeze that filtered through the stable. He plucked a couple from the top and reached them over the gate towards the horse, arching an eyebrow when the mighty head deigned to lower itself to his palm, nicking the offering up with remarkable care. He still felt the heavy, sharp press of the square teeth and remembered how frightened he'd been of the horse when he was small. How much bigger the stallion had been then, and not to be tamed by any hand other than Odin's. Not then and not now. He held no illusions about that.

The long black head turned away again, the offering chewed down to be followed by more feed.

He sighed. "To the gates of Death itself and back, so goes your story. And so have I, after a fashion, and I did not get there riding atop your saddle." His hand went to his jacket one more time, patting once and then pulling out the once-lost carved toy horse to examine. His older eyes saw what he'd missed as a child – a stray nick here, a slightly off-angle foot, a bridle that thinned in the wrong place. Little errors made by hands that were compensating for a lost eye, but now he saw _why _those flaws never mattered to him then. He smoothed a thumb over the wooden muzzle, feeling a moment of utterly encompassing sadness. "There's more than one road for everything, after all. A thousand different ways to tell the tale of a life. But he was right, much as that admission pains me. They're not easy."

Another soft whicker. The long tail snapped lazily at the warm air, mighty Sleipnir uninterested in the parallels between himself and the carving meant to evoke him, much less the demigod's personal pontifications. Loki smirked to himself, the expression fading fast as his thoughts drifted towards the Jotun woman. Of his own place in the universe. Of the old recurring dream he distantly remembered – lost in the frozen dark, too fragile and small to find his way out. It struck a fresh discomfort in him, brought new questions he decided he was unready for.

He looked up at the horse instead of going deeper within himself. Sleipnir continued to ignore him with regal disdain. "So is it true after all? Do the wanderers eventually find their way home, wherever that may be?" He shook his head with a wry smile and put the toy away, itself no longer lost. It would be safe in the soft pocket of his jacket, safer yet on the shelves of his chosen shelter. "Perhaps I'm not to know the answer to that yet. Perhaps there's still far too much road ahead of me." _And so I suppose __I'll collect my clues, my mysteries... and some answers I never wanted along the way. _

He looked away, squinting up at the sky above the nearby paddock and accepting the silence as some kind of answer. And then he walked silently back down the corridor away from the stable and from the castle, on his way back to Earth.

Perhaps it was not home.

But perhaps, nor was he lost.

_~Fin_

"_...at the bottom of the abyss comes the voice of salvation... At the darkest moment comes the light." ~ Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth._

_4/13/15 MDS. All relevant rights remain in the hands of Marvel with no infringement intended. All realities are fair game. All half-mad demigods do whatever the hell they want._


End file.
